Just over a month and a half after the first production Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” was delivered to the aircraft’s launch customer—Japan’s ANA—Boeing, in association with Air New Zealand, brought one of its Dreamliner test aircraft to New Zealand as part of a brief tour that also included Australia. The visiting aircraft, ZA001 (N787BA), has flown the highest number of hours ...

Training tomorrow’s warriors is what the 23rd Flying Training Squadron at Fort Rucker, Alabama, is all about. Pacific Wings joined the squadron to see how the US Air Force trains its future helicopter pilots using the UH-1H Iroquois and TH-1H Huey II. The early days The inception of military helicopter pilot training can be traced back to January 1944, when the US ...

For the first time since the 1999 intervention in Kosovo, the French Navy has found itself carrying out a large-scale combat operation. Henri-Pierre Grolleau reports from the deck of the Charles de Gaulle in the Gulf of Sirte. Compared to the Kosovo crisis, a lot of things have changed for the French Navy (Marine nationale). The Foch has been sold to ...

Article by Rob Neil. In the early 1980s, when Piaggio Aero named its new aircraft Avanti (“forward”), the name couldn’t have been more appropriate. Today, the beautiful sleek Avanti II is still futuristic, and is still simultaneously the world’s fastest civil turboprop and, arguably, its “greenest” business aircraft. It is as “modern” today as it was when it first flew, and ...

Mount Cook Airline, as it is known today, has a long and extremely proud history as a pioneer in New Zealand’s air transport industry. The company had its roots in the 1920s when it was originally established at Timaru by Rodolph Lysaght Wigley as the New Zealand Aero Transport Company. Having originally begun transport and tourism services to and from ...

When Peter Vincent of Vincent Aviation makes up his mind to do something, it will eventually be done—and done properly. It is undoubtedly why this small private company has somehow survived the worst financial times in living memory and defied the usual demons that afflict aviation. What began as a tiny charter company based in Wellington has grown to become New ...

By Rob Neil. In June 2009, Pacific Wings featured an article on the all-composite Flight Design CTLS light sport aircraft. The Flight Design range was then—and remains—one of the most popular light sport aircraft (LSA) in the world. Flight Design sold the first LSA into India, it was the first LSA to earn Chinese Type Design Approval and it has been ...

I had come to Heliflite Pacific at Ardmore to take a look at the R66 Turbine—the latest iteration of Frank Robinson’s evolutionary series of simple, affordable and reliable helicopters. With a stark blue sky as a backdrop, the Ferrari-red R66 looked fantastic as it sat parked on the apron outside Heliflite. It might have been Friday the 13th (of May), ...

By Rob Neil. The Tecnam P2008 is undoubtedly the most attractive single-engined aircraft produced by Tecnam to date. A true “composite” aircraft, the P2008 is Tecnam’s first to utilise carbon-fibre for major construction. The aircraft features a carbon-fibre fuselage and fin, while its wings and control surfaces, and its horizontal tail (stabilator) are all made of metal. The aesthetically pleasing flowing ...

By Donald Harward It just happened to be Memorial Day, but in Afghanistan, it didn’t seem any different from any other day. The flag outside was still flying at half-mast. I wasn’t sure if it was flying that way for the guys who were killed a couple of days earlier, or perhaps someone from the previous night—I didn’t want to ask. Today, ...